Coupons + Social Media + Mobile: The Digital Future of Promotions

Innovative companies are creating exciting technologies and sites that integrate coupons and social networking for mobile devices. Brands, including Crocs and Coca Cola, share best practices and real-world examples as they reach customers using deal aggregator sites that leverage mapping, social applications and email, and interactive logos that help enforce branding while incorporating a call to action and rewarding customers with sample or coupon offers.

Understand the challenges in developing a couponing business model for mobile platforms

Learn what role Facebook and Twitter will play in couponing in the mobile space

Featured Speakers:

Jeff Crowe, General Partner, Norwest Venture Partners

Jennifer Dulski, CEO, The Dealmap

Kenneth Dayley III, Global Business Development Manager, Crocs

Nicole Skogg, CEO, Spyderlynk

Scott Cuppari, Media & Interactive Manager, The Coca-Cola Company

Victoria Ransom, CEO and Co-Founder, Wildfire Interactive

David Sobie, VP Business Development, Haute Look

In 2009, $40 billion worth of coupons, industry-wide, were redeemed. Experts project that in 2011, over $2 billion will be redeemed via mobile alone.

Kenneth Dayley III and Jennifer Dulski

It was important to Dayley that the attendees understand that Crocs makes more than plastic clogs with holes in them.

Crocs partnered with The Dealmap for geo-targeted offers.

The key to the success of the campaign was cross-channel promotion in mobile, social, email, web, and via other publishing partners.

Mobile was a key driver. If you had The Dealmap app installed on your mobile device, and you were within 5 miles, an ad with a scannable bar code slid down over content in the app like a pop-over ad.

They also ran a contest in social in social media. One facet of the contest was to retweet a Twitter update to win $50 in Crocs merchandise.

5% of people who viewed the coupon redeemed it (versus a 3-4% average across couponing in general). Mobile converted at 7% (Conversions are users who saw the coupon and then later redeemed the coupon.).

If they have skipped any one channel, it wouldn't have worked as well.

Scott Cuppari and Nicole Skogg

For a quick introduction to SnapTags (and how they work), visit this page on SpyderLynk's website.

Over multiple venues and events, five different campaigns, each with discrete SnapTags, were created:

Instant win: Take a photo of a SnapTag on the spot and submit it to an SMS number to see if you have won

A scavenger hunt: Multiple SnapTags were placed on signage throughout an event (like Burning Man)

A teaser campaign

A viral campaign

A branded campaign

The campaigns were facilitated by a simple back-end management system for each discrete code ring. The system could update in real-time, and it was easy to change with minimal effort.

One of the more effective uses of the SnapTags were the t-shirts worn by the street teams. The tag was on the back.

Victoria Ransom and David Sobie

These two companies create a couponing campaign via social media -- primarily Facebook.

While Haute Look was happy with any campaign that would grow Facebook fans, Haute Look can only make money when people redeem the coupons and buy merchandise. Therefore, increased sales was the primary goal.

Unique codes were created for each individual coupon. You had to become a fan of the Facebook page to get the coupon, but you didn't know the value until after you became a fan. They felt that it was essential to make the process fun, and this was a way to do an "instant win" type of system.

Ransom repeated several times that it is important to offer people something fun on Facebook. People really only visit Facebook for two reasons:

To interact with their friends

To be entertained

They got to the root of why people share content on Facebook.

Because they are expressing something personal about who they are

They think that some content, like a valuable coupon, is genuinely beneficial to friends

Simplicity is essential. The conversion funnel is destroyed if the process is too complicated.

They chose to make a time-sensitive offer that was only valid for a week. They concluded that this tactic drove more sharing since the offer had an expiration date.

They both stressed that frequently changing and updating the Facebook page is important. If the content is allowed to stagnate, people will stop coming back.

This is getting bit more subjective, but I much prefer the Zune Marketplace. The interface is colorful, has more flair, and some cool features like 'Mixview' that let you quickly see related albums, songs, or other users related to what you're listening to. Clicking on one of those will center on that item, and another set of "neighbors" will come into view, allowing you to navigate around exploring by similar artists, songs, or users. Speaking of users, the Zune "Social" is also great fun, letting you find others with shared tastes and becoming friends with them. You then can listen to a playlist created based on an amalgamation of what all your friends are listening to, which is also enjoyable. Those concerned with privacy will be relieved to know you can prevent the public from seeing your personal listening habits if you so choose.